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[Dawg]

Spoiler

Not really surprised though, even if I like a great deal of their other articles.

 

[Jeff-DSA]

Either Arthur Gies' review of Bayonetta 2 or the Shadow of Mordor kiss "controversy" article. Both missed the mark so hard that I'm surprised that they got through to publication.

 

[Mexican Sting]

Who was the best gaming journalist this year, GAF?

Shoe and Sessler, because they got out?

 

[Cardon]

So many Polygon articles.

• The pie chart one they doubled down on as "heavily researched"
• The use of the Ferguson protests to write a fluff piece on watch_dogs
• Saying they now know what it's like to be in a war because of This War of Mine
  [*]Saying they now know what it's like to be in a concentration camp because of Wolfenstein

Special mention to EGM's review of Aliens Colonial Marines which was either bought and paid for or written without ever picking up the game.

Wait a minute, both of these were actual things that were written as articles or were they just mentioned in the respective reviews?

 

[Harlock]

I don't know best journalist, but best site I vote for USGamer. It is rare you see any dumb article there and had various good features, interviews etc. Maybe the only site to carry the good old times torch.

 

[Blobbers]

Polygon: The Thread?

Sonic fan art expert rates the pornographic potential for Sonic Boom cast
Watch 'Sharknado 2: The Second One' a second time in Xbox One's new Syfy app
Vin Diesel is the Muzzy of our generation
What the world needs is not just a selfie phone, but more selfie video games
Deadpool's Hollywood screen test begins with Gwen Stefani, ends with a decapitated head
Proof '90s kids playing video games are cooler than kids today
We knew Dark Souls 2 was missing something (it's Rocky)
This Sonic and Cammy fan-film only gets weird after the S&M scene
Scientifically Accurate Sonic is everything you never wanted to know about hedgehog poop
Tonight, a nation's favorite game will award a human prize [The Bachelorette]
'The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies' teaser thick with Smaug
Why Shadow of Mordor's undead Elven hero and sexy Sauron are such a big deal
How one kid in a Batman costume conquered San Francisco
Watch the cast of 'Game of Thrones' goof off in this blooper reel
The best part about the 'Family Guy'/'Simpsons' crossover might be 'Bob's Burgers'
What do Shakespeare and The Last of Us movie have in common?
Which film is better: 'Alien' or 'Aliens'? We find out
This robot will destroy you in Connect Four

 

[CosmicSmash]

Did anyone else happen to catch Brian Crecente live streaming his "games journalism" process? I think it was earlier this year, but fuck, I couldn't stand more than a couple minutes of it.

 

[shacklesmcgee]

The "Gamers are over" article. It's like someone who's heard all the gamer stereotypes but never actually interacted with a real person who plays games.

lmao I knew someone would come out as a gator eventually

 

[SolidSnakex]

Wait a minute, both of these were actual things that were written as articles or were they just mentioned in the respective reviews?

I think he's referring to this when it comes to Wolfenstein

 

[LaserBuddha]

Thing is, Bayonetta is a game conceived as a sexualized extravaganza. It was created like that. He can dislike it, but spending 10 paragraphs rambling about it before even talking about the game is awful. It's like criticizing a FPS for making you shoot stuff.

Think about it as an Iggy Azalea or Nicki Minaj performance. Why is it different? And why does it indulge holier than thou articles over it? You could dislike it, but spending a whole review explaining why you disliked it isn't missing the point?

Terrible analogies. And I don't know what "it was created like that" as a defense for a game is supposed to mean, but It sounds like it doesn't mean anything.

I mean you simultaneously say that the point of Bayonetta is to be like this, while saying that the reviewer is missing the point by talking about this. Either it's an intrinsic part of the game, like shooting people in an FPS per your words, or it isn't.

You guys simply have an opinion that conflicts with the reviewer's, and you can try really hard but it will remain a subjective disagreement rather than a mistake by the reviewer. Just take the L already.

inb4 "objective reviews"

 

[Coxy]

Polygon has become Play4Real4Real

 

[BattleMonkey]

The silly Polygon articles defending Destiny, bashing out outlets and players for their opinion.

 

[adamsapple]

http://loltaku.tumblr.com

Take your pick....

THE FUCK

 

[adj_noun]

After reading that Breitbart Dragon Age article, I think we're obligated to hand them the title. They earned it.

 

[AggroWill]

This goes down as the worst video game review of the year for me, and that includes Polygon's Bayo 2 review. Straight from GamerGate's "journalist" torchbearer, @Nero.

Highlights:

middling but commercially popular, if somewhat buggy, releases such as Baldur's Gate and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Bioware has failed to do even cursory research into lesbian relationships. For a start, both partners are cute. And they actually have sex! You know, instead of sitting opposite one another, separated by an abandoned Scrabble board and the remains of yesterday’s Saga knitting challenge, surrounded by rescue cats. In any case, with lesbian sex scenes as ugly and forced as this, the only scissoring you’ll want to do afterwards is to the game DVD.

Dragon Age: Inquisition is what gamers mean when they say they're worried about intellectually dishonest critics like Anita Sarkeesian muscling in on the games industry and encouraging developers to slap a few dykes or a woman in a wheelchair into games to suck up to left-wing bloggers and keep their Metacritic scores up.

If BioWare applied themselves as much to ensuring a consistently high-quality visual experience and more sophisticated game mechanics as they do to crowbarring social justice memes like hot lesbian action and smouldering man-on-man bonkfests into their storylines, perhaps the overall effect of their games would be stronger—and hardcore gamers wouldn't hold them in quite as much contempt. But that's Canada for you.

Incidentally, I'm like 40 hours in and haven't slept with anybody yet. I mean, in the game.

 

[FStop7]

Not as bad as Polygon stuff but honourable mention should be made to when Patrick Klepick was calling out the maker of 2048 for making a clone of Threes, starting posting the dudes contact info on his twitter and told the internet to attack him, THEN finally shut up once people called him out on it because it was only a issue because he was friends with the dude that made Threes and at the time shared office space and also how dumb and hypocritical it was he was acting like a 4chan troll while also writing anti bullying speeches for Ted X

http://www.giantbomb.com/articles/meet-the-clones/1100-4891/

http://patrickklepek.tumblr.com/post/81715518097/the-line

Both Patrick and Alex's psychotic episodes over Threes really put me off on the both of them.

 

[ElodieTicotoune]

THIS!!!!!!!

"Microsoft: Over 1 Billion Next-Gen Consoles Will be Sold"

http://ca.ign.com/articles/2013/05/24/microsoft-over-1-billion-next-gen-consoles-will-be-sold

I still remember seing this HAHAHA. That was before they announced all the DRM and always connected stuff if i remember well.

What the hell where they thinking.
MS better start selling those xbox ones if they want to get half of those sales hahaha.

 

[shacklesmcgee]

THE FUCK

that's not even from Kotaku, nor a journalist? says IGN blog

 

[AggroWill]

After reading that Breitbart Dragon Age article, I think we're obligated to hand them the title. They earned it.

What, you don't like 10 paragraphs to whine about social justice, 4 paragraphs to make smarmy jokes about Polygon and Kotaku, and another 8 paragraphs just saying weird and hateful shit about lesbians?

... Now that I think about it, I'm not entirely sure there was a review in there.

 

[mnz]

THIS!!!!!!!

"Microsoft: Over 1 Billion Next-Gen Consoles Will be Sold"

http://ca.ign.com/articles/2013/05/24/microsoft-over-1-billion-next-gen-consoles-will-be-sold

I still remember seing this HAHAHA. That was before they announced all the DRM and always connected stuff if i remember well.

What the hell where they thinking.
MS better start selling those xbox ones if they want to get half of those sales hahaha.

It's not the articles fault that some people over at Microsoft are apparently insane.

 

[SolidSnakex]

SENRAN KAGURA is destroying the games industry. Here's how to stop it!

They actually made another article about it in their magazine once SK2 was announced. This after telling people to not talk about it or buy it so it'll go away. The best part about the whole event was seeing all the UK sales charts popup with SKB climbing to #1 after that article hit.

 

[VibratingDonkey]

Anything and everything by Breitbart-Milo.
Alex Macris' and The Escapist's severe fucking up on that "Game Devs on Gamergate" article.

 

[Fawoosh]

I was playing Wolfenstein when it first came out and telling people about how much I was loving it. Someone linked me to this and I actually bust out laughing (Polygon, naturally).

http://www.polygon.com/2014/5/20/5734482/wolfenstein-sex

EDIT: Kuchera strikes again

 

[Orayn]

THE FUCK

Did you read the post in question? BSI is some hot garbage and even the inflammatory title is totally apt. Irrational had an interesting setting and premise but suddenly realized "Oh, this is a BioShock game" and shoehorned in a bunch of ill-fitting junk that ultimately didn't serve the game at all. Same with Deus Ex Human Revolution's infamous boss fights, another case of the devs making the mistake of thinking "Oh this is X kind of game, I guess we'd better include Y" without really thinking it through any further than that.

Gameplay, story, setting, etc. can all hold a game back if they're implemented in a way that's not in tune with the rest of the experience the developers are trying to deliver.

 

[SystemUser]

Mario Kart 8: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Pie Chart

I love that pie chart so much.

 

[Dot-N-Run]

After looking at the examples in this thread I shudder thinking of how bad any rejected articles are.

 

[Gusy]

If non-gaming articles on gaming websites that spoils said non-gaming content in said article's HEADLINE counts.. then, what Crecente just did takes the cake.

 

[Kade]

The silly Polygon articles defending Destiny, bashing out outlets and players for their opinion.

That was GamesRadar.

 

[cubicle47b]

Did they remove the pie chart from the article?

 

[spookyfish]

Yup.

Laughing at work. Thank you!

 

[N30RYU]

Eurogamer and why we should not preorder The Order


And why we should not have been warned with Unity, MCC or Driveclub

 

[fhqwhgads]

It honestly surprises me that Polygon hasn't been made a banned site yet.

 

[samuraidino]

So this is probably the article that pissed me off more than any other.

You might think there'd be individual comments about how say... Al Pacino plays mario because they're both known for Firey(flower) performances and are of Italian descent... but no,its literally just a bunch of celebrity names put over pictures of Smash characters.

Awful,awful awful.

 

[petghost]

Not as bad as Polygon stuff but honourable mention should be made to when Patrick Klepick was calling out the maker of 2048 for making a clone of Threes, starting posting the dudes contact info on his twitter and told the internet to attack him, THEN finally shut up once people called him out on it because it was only a issue because he was friends with the dude that made Threes and at the time shared office space and also how dumb and hypocritical it was he was acting like a 4chan troll while also writing anti bullying speeches for Ted X

http://www.giantbomb.com/articles/meet-the-clones/1100-4891/

http://patrickklepek.tumblr.com/post/81715518097/the-line

jeez....this is pretty fucked up.

 

[Noaloha]

The "Gamers are over" article. It's like someone who's heard all the gamer stereotypes but never actually interacted with a real person who plays games.

I'm puzzled by your comment. You linked to an article that aims specifically to remind developers that the people playing videogames are more varied and widespread than they've ever been before. Maybe you just mislinked the wrong one.

 

[jholmes]

I knew someone was going to bring this one up. I never understood the hate for this review. It obviously affected his experience with the game (and negatively), why wouldn't he bring it up? And it makes sense that he'd want to explain his stance, especially since he apparently didn't even write enough to explain it properly.

Because the reviewer gets to make the final score based on their experience with the game? Why is this a problem in every thread that mentions the Bayo 2 review?

Because...

Changing my mind to the Bayonetta 2 review. Gies is fully entitled to feel put off from sexually overt content, but detracting that from the final score when he praised the gameplay and freedom in Grand Theft Auto V? A game with arguably more issues having vapid two dimensional female NPCs used primarily as sex toys and objects to be viewed with lust, as compared to a strong female character who uses her sexuality as a weapon to fight her enemies? I won't give him any credibility.

Gies is attempting to be worldly when he's just being a pretentious twat with his holier than thou mentality. And I hate that I keep talking about him despite telling myself I won't when he incited such rage in me after that SimCity debacle.

On an unrelated note.

So this is probably the article that pissed me off more than any other.

Awful,awful awful.

Polygon needs to hire Patricia Hernandez and let their feature writers out of their cages so someone can rocket that website into outer space where there is no traffic to drive their clickbait.

 

[LurkerPrime]

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/12/15/Review-Dragon-Age-Inquisition

This fucking thing. Most "ethical" review out there /s

I'd nominate this thing but it's not games journalism, it's just some crazy person's rants. Sorta sad how obvious the author's agenda is... It almost wraps around into parody or satire. Almost.

Polygon's crazypants Mario Kart 8 Pie chart gets my nomination.

 

[HK-47]

Not as bad as Polygon stuff but honourable mention should be made to when Patrick Klepick was calling out the maker of 2048 for making a clone of Threes, starting posting the dudes contact info on his twitter and told the internet to attack him, THEN finally shut up once people called him out on it because it was only a issue because he was friends with the dude that made Threes and at the time shared office space and also how dumb and hypocritical it was he was acting like a 4chan troll while also writing anti bullying speeches for Ted X

http://www.giantbomb.com/articles/meet-the-clones/1100-4891/

http://patrickklepek.tumblr.com/post/81715518097/the-line

Wow, what fuckwits. Was there a topic on this? I dont remember seeing it on GAF.

 

[Mesoian]

This goes down as the worst video game review of the year for me, and that includes Polygon's Bayo 2 review. Straight from GamerGate's "journalist" torchbearer, @Nero.

Highlights:









Incidentally, I'm like 40 hours in and haven't slept with anybody yet. I mean, in the game.

WHAT THE FU- oh Breitbart. Yeah.

This is about what I'd expect from a site that hates gay people, women and gamers in basically the same way.

Not as bad as Polygon stuff but honourable mention should be made to when Patrick Klepick was calling out the maker of 2048 for making a clone of Threes, starting posting the dudes contact info on his twitter and told the internet to attack him, THEN finally shut up once people called him out on it because it was only a issue because he was friends with the dude that made Threes and at the time shared office space and also how dumb and hypocritical it was he was acting like a 4chan troll while also writing anti bullying speeches for Ted X

http://www.giantbomb.com/articles/meet-the-clones/1100-4891/

http://patrickklepek.tumblr.com/post/81715518097/the-line

Man, I thought that was 2013.

Yeah, that was pretty shitty.

The "Gamers are over" article. It's like someone who's heard all the gamer stereotypes but never actually interacted with a real person who plays games.

Real talk, that is my favorite article of the year. It's so good and the salt people from the people who didn't understand the actual message had tasted so good on my fries. I have never seen so many people get so upset on an article that is saying that not only is gaming here to stay, but that it should be celebrated.

 

[Fhtagn]

You see, this wasn't the gist of the article at all. The article was a game designer (ie not a journalist and therefore not even valid for your thread title) writing about how he thinks that a game mechanic and an emotional reaction lining up is a very powerful thing that games can do and how this moment went against that. I had never even considered game mechanics from that perspective so I found it pretty interesting.

This was the central point of the article:



I think the only real problem with the article is the headline which makes everyone assume that it is some "oh no violence is bad and this is conflating it with everyday actions and ah!" morality police article.

Yup, exactly. People vehemently complaining about that article either didn't read it, or are "stop taking things so seriously, it's just a game" people who don't want anyone doing close readings of video games to begin with.

 

[Regiruler]

Pokemon doing too well.

Spoiler

It is but for the wrong reasons. #bringbackbattlefrontier

 

[Cybit]

Polygon: The thread vote 323094802. There's no actual review of DA:I in that breitbart article.

 

[Acquiescence]

Not as bad as Polygon stuff but honourable mention should be made to when Patrick Klepick was calling out the maker of 2048 for making a clone of Threes, starting posting the dudes contact info on his twitter and told the internet to attack him, THEN finally shut up once people called him out on it because it was only a issue because he was friends with the dude that made Threes and at the time shared office space and also how dumb and hypocritical it was he was acting like a 4chan troll while also writing anti bullying speeches for Ted X

http://www.giantbomb.com/articles/meet-the-clones/1100-4891/

http://patrickklepek.tumblr.com/post/81715518097/the-line

How have I only just heard about this now?

 

[Spyder_Monkey]

The "Gamers are over" article. It's like someone who's heard all the gamer stereotypes but never actually interacted with a real person who plays games.

You forgot to put the gamergate and notyoursheild hashtags.

 

[Brawly Likes to Brawl]

Pokemon doing too well.

Spoiler

It is but for the wrong reasons. #bringbackbattlefrontier

Its not coming back.

 

[Mesoian]

Did you read the post in question? BSI is some hot garbage and even the inflammatory title is totally apt. Irrational had an interesting setting and premise but suddenly realized "Oh, this is a BioShock game" and shoehorned in a bunch of ill-fitting junk that ultimately didn't serve the game at all. Same with Deus Ex Human Revolution's infamous boss fights, another case of the devs making the mistake of thinking "Oh this is X kind of game, I guess we'd better include Y" without really thinking it through any further than that.

Gameplay, story, setting, etc. can all hold a game back if they're implemented in a way that's not in tune with the rest of the experience the developers are trying to deliver.

In other words "Why didn't they just make BI a fallout game."

 

[Orayn]

In other words "Why didn't they just make BI a fallout game."

Not really. I think the whole BioShock series is pretty tenuous in the gameplay department, and the first one only worked so well because the mechanics were well integrated with the setting, story, and atmosphere. Scavenging for health and resources made sense because you were in a run-down, collapsing city. Plasmids were an integral part of why the setting existed and how Rapture came into its current state. BSI was a letdown because they managed to make most of those mechanics worse while sticking them in a new setting where their main justifications were "this is a Bioshock game" and

Spoiler

"we have vigors and not-Big-Daddies because we copied them from Bioshock."

I don't know exactly what changes would have made BSI more to my liking, I just know wasn't terribly thrilled by the game.

 

[Gav47]

Not as bad as Polygon stuff but honourable mention should be made to when Patrick Klepick was calling out the maker of 2048 for making a clone of Threes, starting posting the dudes contact info on his twitter and told the internet to attack him, THEN finally shut up once people called him out on it because it was only a issue because he was friends with the dude that made Threes and at the time shared office space and also how dumb and hypocritical it was he was acting like a 4chan troll while also writing anti bullying speeches for Ted X

http://www.giantbomb.com/articles/meet-the-clones/1100-4891/

http://patrickklepek.tumblr.com/post/81715518097/the-line

Wow, nearly forgot about this, despicable behaviour from someone who genuinely calls himself a journalist.

 

[ClayKavalier]

The silly Polygon articles defending Destiny, bashing out outlets and players for their opinion.

Kuchera wrote an article that was basically "We know there's been a lot of Destiny articles lately, but as long you keep clickin' we'll keep shittin' 'em out."

I guess it's not technically an article, but for awhile after the Uncharted 4 gameplay at PSX Polygon had a forum thread titled "Uncharted Bore" featured on their front page. Polygon's design can make it hard to distinguish a thread from a published article, so it looked official.

In a funny twist, since it was a forum post it didn't have the boilerplate "The views expressed in this editorial do not represent Polygon as an organization" message that all of their opinion pieces have. I tweeted Kuchera asking what was up with it and he never answered, and it was pulled from the front page awhile after.

 

[Mesoian]

Not really. I think the whole BioShock series is pretty tenuous in the gameplay department, and the first one only worked so well because the mechanics were well integrated with the setting, story, and atmosphere. Scavenging for health and resources made sense because you were in a run-down, collapsing city. Plasmids were an integral part of why the setting existed and how Rapture came into its current state. BSI was a letdown because they managed to make most of those mechanics worse while sticking them in a new setting where their main justifications were "this is a Bioshock game" and

Spoiler

"we have vigors and not-Big-Daddies because we copied them from Bioshock."

I don't know exactly what changes would have made BSI more to my liking, I just know wasn't terribly thrilled by the game.

And that's fine, but I'm really tired of people who just straight up forgot that Bioshock was a first person shooter and BI is a sequel in the same franchise. It's cool if you didn't care very much for the mechanics or you didn't think the combat puzzles were as good as Bioshock, but people asking for a completely different game because they fell in love with the new aesthetic in the first 10 minutes, but forgot that the game was a first person shooter is nothing short of crazy. It's like complaining that Day of the Tenticle is an adventure game because the dialogue made you laugh.

That being said, Tevin Thompson's "Bioshock Infinite Is the Worst Game Of The Generation" was my "Worst games journalism article of 2013".